Lucknow: Days after Uttar Pradesh police boasted of figures to more than 1100 encounters in the last 10 months, a criminal who was shot during a shootout in Barabanki has claimed that he was arrested two days before the incident.
An encounter was reported from the district in which, according to the police, three criminals were nabbed. One of those history-sheeters caught after the gun battle, Anshu Pushpakar, has claimed he was in police custody two days before it.
Talking to News18, Pushpakar says he was arrested with another of the criminals involved in the shootout. “I was arrested, along with another person, by the crime branch officers two days before the encounter. When I arrived at the police station, there were three others already in custody. A night before the encounter, we were given food at 10pm. At 1.30 am, we were taken to a bridge. There, another person and I were shot,” said Pushpakar, who is undergoing treatment at a Primary Health Centre in Suratganj.
The police had an entirely different version. “We were investigating the area because of the Kisan Rally. When we spotted them, the criminals opened fire. We fired back in retaliation and managed to nab three of them. One, unfortunately, managed to escape. A stolen car, live cartridges and country-made pistols were recovered from them. They belong to the interstate gang. Police inspector Arun Kumar and two constables, Ankit Tomar and Rahul Verma, were injured in the incident,” said SP Barabanki Anil Kumar Singh.
UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath, after coming to power gave the police full freedom to deal with rising crime rates in the state. While stating so, he asked criminals to either surrender or leave UP. Responding to this, the police promptly launched ‘Operation Clean’ and took no time in beginning to deal with wanted men.
According to information released by Uttar Pradesh Police, there were 1142 police encounter in Uttar Pradesh between March 20, 2017, and January 31, 2018.
There have been voices raised against the encounters, especially when a police officer shot a gym owner in Noida to get a promotion. The death of Sumit Gurjar, who was also shot dead by the police in Noida, had raised eyebrows. The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) even sent a notice to the UP Government over the encounter of Sumit Gurjar seeking answers.
If the burgeoning number of encounters are not kept a strict vigil, it could lead to a repeat of the 1991 Pilibhit fake encounter case. In 2016, a special CBI court found 47 police officers guilty of killing 12 people who were travelling back from a pilgrimage. The police, reacting to a speculative story about militants travelling the route, stopped their bus and took the group to different spots. All 12 were later found dead.
Meanwhile, opposition parties have been critical of the police’s alleged free reign. Talking to News18, Samajwadi Party spokesperson, Rajendra Chaudhary said, “The recent encounter in Noida was fake and we seek strict action against the culprits. CM Yogi had warned the criminals but instead, crime has risen in the state. This is just government propaganda to hide their failure to crime control. This is a smokescreen created by the BJP but on the contrary, the crime graph is rising. Law and order situation has gone out of the hand in the state.”
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